Horror Endings: Tales from the Gothic Reading Group

This year, the Gothic Reading Group celebrated its fifth year with a host of psychological, spectral tales. The theme of the year (unintentionally) seems to have been ancient magics and twist endings. We continued our tradition of meeting Friday afternoons in Packer House, passing out the skull goblets, and pouring out wine, literary commentary, fears, and phobias.

With our first text, we jumped into a jumble of partial documents and firsthand accounts in D.A. Stern’s Shadows in the Asylum: The Case Files of Dr. Charles Marsh.

Why You Should Consider Rare Book School

I just spent a week at Rare Book School—a program based at UVA that offers book-related courses to scholars, collectors, librarians, booksellers, etc—learning about the principles and best practices of scholarly editing. It was an incredible, valuable, and exhausting experience, and I’ve written a more extensive blog post about the ins and outs of the program elsewhere. But, I wanted to take a few minutes to put this experience in the specific context of our departmental concerns. Here’s why you, Lehigh grad students, should consider Rare Book School:

These points are specific to the course I took on scholarly editing, but there may be value in any RBS course.

Demon Babies, Snake Women, and Vampires: Just another Semester for Gothic Reading Group

I think it’s safe to say that, this semester, the Gothic provoked more fear, surprise, exasperation, and… confusion than ever before, and that’s saying a lot for six semesters of GRG strangeness. Our group is dedicated to tasting both the “canonical” texts of the Gothic, those we’ve all heard about (or seen the movie), as well as the obscure, sensational, and campy works that hide within its shadows. We aim to analyze and explore the many dimensions of this tradition, but I’ve always been a firm believer in making sure we enjoy ourselves along the way: this is, after all, a literature invested in good entertainment. In my post last year, I gave a run-down of some of the texts we’ve covered since we began, but for this post there’s plenty to cover just in what we read this semester. As usual, we held our not-at-all secret meetings in Packer House on Friday afternoons, mixing books with goblets of wine: three books in total, and one very high-quality film. We try to mix contemporary stuff with some of the classics to touch on everyone’s interests and to get an idea of just how far this tradition stretches. Very far, indeed… and then some.

What’s Grad School Got to Do with Blogging? A lot! Things to consider before you start

This is a version of two workshops I held this past semester, and I thought it would be a good reminder about blogging over the summer! These are just some rudimentary things to think about if you are a first-time blogger. Please feel free to post questions, concerns, or experiences with blogging in the comments!

Image credit: thehalogroupeffect.com

Pursuing and sharing your academic interests through blogging is a great way to expand your professional network and to keep up with the news of your field. Not only will it allow you to share your experiences with others, but it can give you access to feedback about your ideas and advice from others. There are thousands and thousands of blogs out there, so getting involved in this virtual world can be overwhelming. Here are some things to consider before you start.

Alt-Ac: Maybe We’re Already Doing It

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post for the NASSR Grad Student Caucus blog called “Alt-Ac-Attack: Thoughts on Preparing for the Job Market.” At that time, our department was just starting to increase professionalization practices geared towards alt-ac options. In fact, I think the term was still new to me at the time. Since them, it seems like everybody’s talking about it, from grad students and faculty in the department to larger academic blogs, twitter conversations, and periodicals. The term, though it may no longer carry the same stigma that it did a year ago, is still not exactly positive (despite whether or not it should be). Yet, I found the recent panel about alt-ac careers not only useful but very uplifting. On the panel, held February 26^th, we heard from Eileen Brumitt (Writing Center Director, Student Support Specialist, Act 101 Counselor), David Fine (Interim Assistant Director of Global Citizenship), and Elizabeth Wiggins (Visual Arts and Education Coordinator at ArtsQuest). I’ve collected some of the advice and experiences from each speaker that I found encouraging and helpful. The main impression that I got from each speaker (more or less) is that an alternate academic career is actually an okay goal, even a great goal. That is something easily said, but these speakers and their obvious enthusiasm and hard work made a stronger case than any I’ve seen.

Be Afraid of the Dark: Tales of the Gothic Reading Group

This September marked the third year for the Gothic Reading Group (the fifth semester, if you’re keeping track). Our group has been dedicated to exploring and enjoying the Gothic across different time periods and forms, from the earliest Gothic texts (The Castle of Otranto and Christabel), to the Victorian (The Beetle, Werewolf Stories, and Behind a Mask) to contemporary (Dangerous Laughter, Zombie, Altmann’s Tongue, and Coraline). We’ve read poetry, short stories (notably the classics of Poe and Lovecraft), drama, graphic novels, and watched films. We even expanded our focus to include theater: many members of the group went to see the Lehigh Theater Department’s production of The Pillowman in November, a play that we had read for a Spring 2012 meeting.

Academic Publishing Panel

“Publish or perish” is a phrase we often hear in relation to tenure, but a sparse job market glutted with applicants has brought it down to the graduate level. As Lehigh’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences told grad students and faculty at a panel on academic publishing, having publications has become absolutely necessary to compete in that market. As I’m sure you’ll agree, this is a daunting and disheartening statement. However, the panel members—Dean Donald Hall, Dr. Suzanne Edwards, Dr. Ed Whitley, and grad student Jenny Hyest—offered practical, manageable, and comforting advice to combat it.